


An Open Letter to My Parents: One I Know They Will Never Read

by Schweet



Series: A Series of Open Letters [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Essays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24676117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schweet/pseuds/Schweet
Summary: BLACK LIVES FUCKING MATTER
Series: A Series of Open Letters [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1816228
Kudos: 4





	An Open Letter to My Parents: One I Know They Will Never Read

I know you don’t understand why I’m so mad. You can’t. We were raised in different times. Hell, you’re still raising me. Tonight you taught me how to better listen to a voice I don’t agree with and to plan out my words before I start a debate. Lord knows I can never express myself in the way I need to unless it’s hours later and on paper. So please, listen now.

I am mad. I am so fucking mad. So mad that tonight was the first time I cried in 2 years. 2 years. I can’t cry for myself but I can cry buckets for my brothers and sisters and non-binary siblings. I know you won’t be surprised to hear that.

I know you know I’m scared but do you do why I’m so scared? And why that fear has turned itself into a burning rage that rivals the depths of a burning Hell? When I have never before given myself permission to be angry?

I grew up terrified of strangers because I didn’t know whether his coat hid a rifle or a bomb. I grew up planning which seat to take in class based on exit strategies and imaginary flying bullets. When I daydreamed in class, I ran through school shooter scenarios. I distracted myself from algebra by finding which items in the room could stop a bullet. I debated with friends whether we would survive jumping out the windows once we heard bullets fly.

Mommy you taught me to never sit in an unlocked car, not even in the daylight. I learned in second grade that a thumb was a weak point. I wear my car keys like bear claws and never wear both ear buds at once and fear every man I see after 5 pm. I learned at 13 never to leave my cup unattended. In eighth grade I wanted to chop off all my hair because a teacher told me a man could grab my ponytail to keep me from escaping. I am proud of the fact that I tore your ACL in self-defense class Mommy because that means I can do it to the man that attacks me from behind.

I have hid my sexuality from you because I know you want to support me but that will make you go against the religion that means so much to you. I don’t think I’ll ever truly be able to be myself in front of you because you said you were disappointed. Mommy do you even remember saying those words? Because I do. I won’t ever be able to forget them. I am so fucking scared of people hating me because of who I love and you can’t even be happy that I had the courage to tell you. Mommy, Daddy, I am growing up in a world where I am terrified to _live_.

And then there are people who have it FUCKING WORSE???

When you asked if this was something I would be willing to die for, I wasn’t lying when I said “Yes”. I wasn’t lying when I said any reasonable person should be. I’m not happy that I said it so quickly. I’m not happy that I didn’t even have to think about it. I’m not happy that I have grown up in a world that has so little value in my own life that when I finally balance out the chemicals in my brain and actually want to start living I don’t even blink at the prospect of dying again. I’m not happy that at 21 I even have come to a decision such as that. Are _you_ willing to die so that everyone has equal and fucking basic human rights? I don’t think either of you are because you value your own lives more than those beside you. None of us have been given that opportunity. We are all fighting to just fucking live.

Something you parents don’t seem to understand is that you helped to make us this way. From your generation declaring war on an entire generation of black men and criminalizing it’s citizens because of the colour of their skin, to telling us that our lives, the children of this nation, that our lives don’t matter and our right to feel safe in malls, theaters, fucking schools maters less than your want to have a military grade assault rifle, to slowly killing our planet in favour of profit? You have all told us that you don’t want to listen. These aren’t even new problems! They didn’t spring out of the woodworks once you started popping out babies, they didn’t materialize as we simultaneously took our first breaths. These were all problems that you could have fixed. Problems you had the opportunity to fix. You could have at least _tried_ to fix. And you didn’t. So now we have to. Us children have to fucking do what should have been your job. And then you patronize us and tell us that we’re just kids so we don’t really know what’s happening and that we should just leave it to the “adults”? You adults who did _nothing_ ?! We have been told, from the moment we were born that not just our voices, but our _lives_ don’t matter. And then you have the _audacity_ to tell us there was nothing we could do to change it. It was the status-quo, it was the way the world worked, it was tradition.

So what did we do? We found solace in those who could _make_ people listen. Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Percy Jackson. And you naively encouraged us all to read. Daddy, you were reading The Sorcerer’s Stone to us every other night during quarantine. How does that series end again? Because I seem to remember a bunch of children fighting those who actively oppressed minority groups. Mommy, today you happily brought home The Hunger Games prequel. Katniss, a fucking sixteen year old, leads a fucking rebellion against an unjust government where the system is inherently wrong and actively harms it’s citizens, many of whom are at unfair disadvantages because of where they live. Percy Jackson? I’m pretty sure those kids take down the fucking gods in that series. They all taught us how to make people listen. They taught us the power we hold in our tiny hands and taught us how to harness the fury your injustices have incited. Taught us how to organize, how to lead, how to _fight back_. We learned that when our systems stop listening to our peaceful protests and attempt to silence our voices with tear gas and rubber bullets and unprompted violence and kneel on our brothers and sisters necks and kill without consequence and strip us of our right to make our voices heard and attack with pepper spray those who kneel with raised hands just because they demand justice? For the police to be held accountable? To the same fucking standards as the rest of us? We learned how to fight back together, hand in hand with our brothers and sisters and non-binary siblings of every race, and ethnicity, and background. Across the world we have started yelling. Can you hear us yet?

Like I reminded you of tonight, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Riots are the voice of the unheard.” May I also remind you that they stopped listening a long time ago. Some of them never listened in the first place. Just because I don’t agree with the riots doesn’t mean I can’t understand them. Why can’t you? Who are we- as white middle-class Americans- to dictate how to protest against police brutality on black Americans?

Were you not also laughing when they burned down the police station? Why is setting police cruisers on fire any different? Why can’t you believe the video footage, the pictures, the words, the first hand _proof_ of what these cops are doing to peaceful protesters and the cities they have supposedly sworn to protect? Are you there getting run over by cop cars? Getting shot at point blank by chemical weapons that multiple international treaties have banned from the fields of war? Is your body covered in bruises inflicted by the militarized weapons of your cities sworn protectors? Has your mask been forcibly pulled down while you are peacefully kneeling only to have pepper spray shot directly into your eyes by a man who is threatened by the colour of your skin? Don’t tell me you wouldn’t fight back. You once told me your worst fear was one of your daughters dying. Think for a second about Tamir Rice’s mother. Eric Garner’s mother. Breonna Taylor’s mother. George Floyd’s mother. If Cristin or Lily or I were brutally murdered by a police officer who had never seen the consequences of his actions before, who wore his badge like it gave him the right to try and convict and execute an American citizen on the sidewalk, would you not also push back?

A childhood of fear and anger has turned us into who we are now. I would just as easily hold a sign as I would start the fire in that precinct. You raised us on riots and rebellions and you’re surprised when we fight back?


End file.
